AMD talks up Hawaii

The next generation of Radeons is about to launch, but so far AMD has done a rather good job at keeping the details away from prying eyes. We got some info on the new branding scheme, some vague performance claims and that’s it – very little in the way of hard tech facts.

Now AMD is shedding more light on its new GPUs. In an interview with Forbes, VP and General Manager of AMD’s Graphics Business Unit, Matt Skynner, said the chips are coming in Q4, which we already knew, but he also confirmed what we reported weeks ago. The cards should end up a bit cheaper than many people had expected.

“We’re not targeting a $999 single GPU solution like our competition because we believe not a lot of people have that $999,” he said. “We normally address what we call the ultra-enthusiast segment with a dual-GPU offering like the 7990. So this next-generation line is targeting more of the enthusiast market versus the ultra-enthusiast one.”

Basically this means AMD is taking a more frugal approach, as it will not focus on the ultra-high-end market. Bang for buck, that’s what AMD is going for.

“It’s also extremely efficient. [Nvidia's Kepler] GK110 is nearly 30% bigger from a die size point of view. We believe we have the best performance for the die size for the enthusiast GPU,” he added.

This is very encouraging news for end-users. The Hawaii die should end up 10 to 15 percent bigger than Tahiti, yet AMD reckons it can take on much bigger GK110 products. A 30 percent smaller die means higher margins, yields and more room to come up with competitive prices. In addition, it should result in a significant improvement in performance-per-watt, which means most users won’t have to upgrade their PSUs to get a significant performance boost, especially those upgrading from 40nm products.